Ray Jasper, an aspiring rap musician, has not denied his
involvement in the planned robbery and murder of 33-year-old
recording studio owner David Alejandro, but during and after his
trial, he has maintained he was not actually responsible for the
man’s death.

As a result, Jasper has stated his execution should not go
forward, and the Associated Press reported his lawyers argued it
should be halted in order to determine whether or not prosecutors
improperly removed a black man from serving on the jury. This
appeal was rejected on Tuesday, setting the stage for a lethal
injection procedure Wednesday evening.

Jasper was pronounced dead at 6:31 CDT after receiving a lethal
injection inside the state's death chamber in Huntsville, the
Texas Department of Criminal justice told media outlets.

The crime that first landed Jasper in trouble occurred in 1998,
when Jasper and two accomplices reportedly attacked Alejandro
after recording in his studio. According to prosecutors, Jasper
used a knife to slit Alejandro’s throat from ear to ear, then
held the man as an accomplice named Steven Russell stabbed him
more than 20 times.

Evidence and testimony from the trial showed Jasper purchased
large bags intended to carry stolen equipment from the studio,
and that up to $30,000 worth of items were taken. Jasper’s
girlfriend also testified that he told her of his plans.

In two letters written to the Gawker website, Jasper insisted he
was not guilty of murder, since it was the stab wounds inflicted
by Russell that were ultimately responsible for Alejandro’s
death.

“I'm on death row and yet I didn't commit the act of
murder,” he wrote to Gawker. “The facts are undisputed
that I did not kill the victim,” yet under Texas law Jasper
said, “I’m criminally responsible for someone else’s
conduct.”

In a previous letter, Jasper also stated that prisoners were
treated like slaves under the 13th Amendment, and expressed anger
with placing inmates in isolation for being unwilling to
“make money for the government.”

“We look at slavery like its a thing of the past, but you can
go to any penitentiary in this nation and you will see
slavery,” he wrote. “People need to know that when they
sit on trial juries and sentence people to prison time that they
are sentencing them to slavery.”

Unmoved by Jasper’s words, one of the prosecutors in charge of
the case – Jeff Mulliner – told the AP there was no doubt the man
organized what to him was the most premeditated murder he’d ever
seen.

"Anybody on the planet that looks, presently or past, at the
photos of David Alejandro's corpse and saw the gash to his neck,
it would be impossible to cut someone that deep and that badly
across the entire path of the neck without having specific intent
to cause his death," he said. "He just didn't quite get
it done."

While Texas prepared to execute Jasper, two similar procedures
were delayed in Oklahoma due to the fact that the state has not
been able to obtain the proper drugs necessary for a lethal
injection. By rescheduling the dates, the state hopes to find the
proper drugs to carry out the sentences.

The move comes after two inmates had asked for a stay in their
executions, pending more information about the kind of drugs
Oklahoma intended to use. The Court of Criminal Appeals, however,
declared their request unnecessary, since the state correctional
department did not have the necessary drugs required to perform
an execution.

"The state has pursued every feasible option to obtain the
necessary execution drugs. This has been nothing short of a
Herculean effort," state attorneys wrote, according to NBC.
"Sadly, this effort has (so far) been unsuccessful."

Efforts by numerous states to acquire drugs such as pentobarbital
have become increasingly difficult, since many of the drug’s
suppliers are European companies with a moral objection against
the capital punishment. Most have banned sales of sedatives and
other drugs to correctional departments, forcing them to seek out
other sources. Some states have turned to compounding pharmacies,
which are not generally regulated by the Food and Drug
Administration.

These attempts have been met with mixed results, as in the case
of convicted killer Dennis McGuire, who was executed in Ohio
earlier this year. It took about 25 minutes for McGuire to die
after being injected with an untested mixture of the sedative
midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone, with reports
suggesting he struggled and gasped for air during the time.

A former attorney for one of the Oklahoma inmates welcomed the
delay, saying, "We hope that no execution will go forward
until we are able to obtain full information about how Oklahoma
intends to conduct those executions, including the source of its
execution drugs."

Meanwhile, state attorney general Scott Pruitt criticized the
delay, saying that instead of being based in fact, the delay is
“about outside forces employing threats, intimidation and
coercion to keep the state of Oklahoma from imposing the
punishment handed down for these heinous crimes."